Dialog agencies win creative awards

Under the motto "creative dialog ideas", Deutsche Post awarded prizes for particularly creative dialog marketing campaigns at the close of the 2006 Mailing Competition. As part of the "Creative moments" event, winners in the four categories of "Standard Format", "Open Format", "Partially Addressed Mailings" and "Agencies self-advertising", as well as the "Parties communication" special competition, were announced at the Siegfried Vögele Institute in Königstein at the weekend. The evaluation criteria were concept and strategy, creativity in graphics and text, target-group specific address and, for the first time, the criterion of outcome and efficiency.

OglivyOne worldwide won the "Standard" category, i.e. for personalized standard mailings, with a mailing for the L'TUR travel company. With this campaign, in the form of a normal travel "sick bag", the travel company achieved 59% more newsletter registrations compared with the previous year. OglivyOne worldwide was also awarded first place in the "Open Format" category with its advertising campaign for Dove.

The mailing made female beauty a key topic and achieved a response rate of 38%. In the "Partially Addressed Mailings" (Postwurf Spezial) group, the FLY Communication agency won first prize for a mailing concerning the BMW 1 Series. The campaign generated 1,000 test drives under the name "Freudentage" (Days of happiness).

The akzent design agency won over the jury to win the "Self-advertising" category. The agency's correspondence, including a "Lebkuchen" (gingerbread) heart, in the style of a reply to a lonely hearts ad, aroused a large amount of interest by decision-makers in dialog marketing.

A special competition for "Parties Communication" took place for the first time which was designed to be the incentive for the relatively new discipline of political mailings. The jury did not award a first prize for this competition.

Second place went to the MK Hoffe Marketing und Kommunikation agency for Friedrich Merz's constituency with its creative "beer mat mailing". Third place went to the com.plot agency for a mailing by Jusos (youth organization in the German Social Democratic SPD party) to first-time voters.

In total, 385 agencies took part in the Mailing Competition and submitted 636 contributions. One mailing from 2005 could be submitted for each category. The best contributions which qualified for final selection across Germany were then selected and awarded prizes in a regional preliminary round. In a second stage, a cross-regional jury selected the national winners.

The jury comprised well-known experts in marketing, communication and dialog: Gernot Feltin (DaimlerChrysler), Claudia Herzog-Geiling (Otto), Michael Koch (OgilvyOne), Rudolf Jahns (Jahns and Friends), Christian Thunig (absatzwirtschaft), Prof. Dr. Andreas Mann (Kassel University), Kerstin Plehwe (PRODIALOG initiative), Wolfgang Terhörst (acquisa), Rudi Porath (Deutsche Post), Prof. Jürgen Hesse (Siegfried Vögele Institute).

The winners were awarded attractive cash prizes at an exclusive final event. The first place winners of each category received 3,000 euros, those in second place 2,000 euros and those in third place 1,000 euros.